Here is a list of courses, books, essays, youtube playlists, and other miscellany about taking notes, with the act interpreted broadly to include things like systems for filing, organization, linking, and thinking. Please feel free to drop a line in the comments or send a PR my way if you have something to add!
Thanks to Abhinav for the prompt :)
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1. Cognitive Productivity: Using Knowledge to Become Profoundly Effective
Book by Luc P. Beaudoin.
Official book summary: You distinguish yourself from others not so much by what you've read, viewed or listened to, but by the lasting impact that information has had upon you. How can you use knowledge to become a more effective person? Cognitive Productivity answers this question with cognitive science and practical strategies.
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2. Cognitive Productivity with macOS: 7 Principles for Getting Smarter with Knowledge
Book by Luc P. Beaudoin.
Official book summary: In today's competitive knowledge economy, you always need to keep learning —and fast. But most information and apps get in the way. This book describes 7 principles for selecting, processing and mastering knowledge using potent Mac apps.
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3. The Introduction to the Zettelkasten Method
Zettelkasten is a rather specific note-taking system (disclaimer: it is not something that I use, but I do find the principles vaguely intriguing). It relies heavily on tagging, linking, going with the flow, not overthinking, and somehow simultaneously keeps things systematic from a retrieval perspective. This overview page has a bunch of pointers that that should serve as a roadmap for the Zettelkasten for anyone inclined to find out more.
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4. How can we develop transformative tools for thought?
Essay by Andy Matuschak and Michael Nielsen
Arguably not about taking notes per se, but about philosophies associated with systems and — as the title suggests — tools for thought.
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5. Evergreen Notes
Thoughts from Andy Matuschak
The OG 'digital garden', if I am not mistaken!
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6. Obsidian for Everyone
Nicole van der Hoeven's course.
Nicole is a pro Obsidian user and a master expositor. This particular course is nice because it focuses on all the things you can achieve without the use of any plugins: just bare-bones Obsidian. You'd be surprised at how far you can go!
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7. Youtube channel: Nicole van der Hoeven
Excellent content for pro and starter Obsidian users alike. Very accessible and engaging, and I believe most people will find something relevant and relatable here.
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08. Grok TiddlyWiki
Grok TiddlyWiki is written and maintained by Soren Bjornstad.
Outstanding introduction to TiddlyWiki. Even non-TW users are likely to get some fun ideas from skimming this. And if you are a TW user, then this is one of the best journeys from starter to pro! Also check out Soren's own digital garden.
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09. Youtube channel: Linking Your Thinking (LYT)
This is Nick Milo's Youtube channel. It is mostly principles around linking, but uses Obsidian as the tool of choice. Nick also organizes a LYT conference regularly that is hugely popular and not particularly restricted to Obsidian. He also has a cohort-based course around LYT principles, a great Obsidian starter playlist, and a course called Obsidian Flight School as well.
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10. Youtube channel: August Bradley
This channel focuses on 'life design' as a broad concept, using Notion as the underlying tool of choice for organization. There is an extensive discussion of the 'PPV' system - Pillars, Pipelines, and Vaults. Lots of system thinking in here, and I think although all of it is done on Notion, several principles are tool-agnostic.
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11. Building a Second Brain
This is a cohort-based course around the notion of building a second brain by Tiago Forte. The material is centered around the 'PARA' method - Projects, Areas, Resources, Archives: a fairly intuitive system that many have found useful. Tiago has one published and one upcoming [at the time of this writing] book on these methods. His blog and Youtube channel dive fairly deep into these concepts, and I think the cohorts are useful if you are building something out and are looking for ways to stay accountable on sticking a system, or want a community/platform to brainstorm ideas.
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12. Youtube channel: Marie Poulin
Marie is an authority when it comes to adapting Notion in creative ways for both personal and business use. She has a very comprehensive course called Notion Mastery that covers a lot of ground in terms of both techniques and principles.
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13. Youtube channel: Zsolt's Visual Personal Knowledge Management
This is the Zsolt's channel, who is behind tools like Excalibrain and Excalidraw for Obsidian and beyond. The channel emphasizes visual aspects of note-taking, while some of it is focused on Excalidraw/Excalibrain, a lot of content is also about general principles, examples, and so on.
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14. Youtube channel: Thomas Frank
This channel is another one that pushes Notion to its limits. While overall this might be more productivity/systems/management territory than note-taking, I have found some great discussions about organizational principles here.
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15. Johnny Decimal
This is purely about organization, but for me how notes are stored are an important piece of the puzzle. If you like folders, you might enjoy this system.
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16. A list of PKM tools
A reddit post collecting a bunch of PKM software options, ranging from mainstream to exotic and everything in between!
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17. To Obsidian and Beyond
A course by Mike Schmitz. From the official description: A master-course for Obsidian users (new and old alike). Finally organize your notes and ideas to make creative output easy.
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18. Youtube channel: Red Gregory
A Notion-based channel: I have found some of the workflows here to be advanced and intriguing in equal measure. Many principles are tool-agnostic, although the focus here is mostly on Notion.
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19. Youtube channel: Danny Hatcher
A channel focused on PKM and organizational systems broadly. I have mostly viewed the Obsidian-related material here: several demonstrations and tutorials have been very helpful.
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20. Verbal to Visual
Lots of resources on sketchnoting and visual approaches to note-taking.
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